1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to wireless telecommunication. More particularly, it relates to short messaging use as a security tool.
2. Background of the Related Art
Current on-line accounts rely on a strong password to prevent intruders from gaining access to an account. Some passwords require that they include both numbers and letters, and/or some require that they be of at least a given number of characters, e.g., at least 8 characters long, all to improve security, although that makes a password more difficult to recall. To assist, in the event of a forgotten password, a user may request that their password be sent to an email address registered when the account was initialized.
However, in the event that a proper password IS entered by an apparent user, conventional on-line account systems presume that the user is authorized. In this event, an unauthorized intruder into an on-line account may have hours to ‘play’ with the account, and may even be able to repeatedly return to the online account before the breach has been noticed and the password changed by a user of the online account.